New look

How do you like our new look? I downloaded Picassa, which is a great free photo editor, and allowed me to make the new header out of one of our pictures from the El Paso Desert Botanical Garden.

The lowest line says, "but there is no sign of rain, so it will be ok."

I like our new colors!

Orren eats solids.

Things went well at Orren's 4 month appointment yesterday. We liked his new pediatrician, and were happy that he was willing to continue our delayed vaccination schedule. Orren did get some shots yesterday, for the first time in his life, but he only got the ones we wanted him to get.

The thing we were really thrilled, although not surprised, with was that we got the green light to start on some solid foods! Yay!! Orren wasn't getting full anymore, and had stopped sleeping through the night several weeks ago. He needed the solids, and now that he's 4 months old, it's ok to give them to him. On our way home from the doctor's office, we stopped at Super Target and got rice cereal, spoons, and bowls.

That night, Orren tried rice cereal for the first time, and he loved it!! Then, best of all, he slept ALL night.

Here's Orren trying rice cereal:

Waiting for the food

First bite

Mmmmmm! It's so good!!!

Two kids on a three kid bench

We're redecorating our living room, and have been perusing all the rustic furniture stores for cool pieces that will be a good fit for our house. One store which was brought to my attention by a fellow NCO wife at a recent social function turned out to be the jackpot! It's unique and solidly constructed rustic looking furniture made of reclaimed wood, at prices that can't be beat. For $360, we walked out with a corner unit for our bar area, a rug, and a little cedar bench with room for three kids. Where I come from, that's what we call a steal.

Here are Erin and Orren on their new bench:

Don't mind the bad picture. I managed to waste the batteries of the camera by leaving it on overnight by accident, so this was taken with Thak's Blackberry. We'll post pics of our newly decorated living room probably in a week or so when it's finished. Our couch is being made as we speak, and we've decided to have a chair made to match it, so it will be a little while, but not too long. We're excited! But the most important thing is that Erin and Orren sure do look cute on their new bench, and there's room for three, so whoever the little brother or sister is will have a seat, too. Erin's already got it all figured out!

Worth every penny.

The new car seat came today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went out to dinner at Pei Wei Asian Diner (a cheaper and very informal version of PF Chang's. It was good.) and when we got back, there was a big box by our door. We knew it was Orren's new car seat, so we rushed out to get it inside and open it up.

This thing did not disappoint. Just to touch it, you can tell it's the best quality, and when you really look at it and inspect it by look and by feel, you about get the idea that whoever sits in it could just about be run over by a tank and be fine. This thing is awesome. I'm so happy we have it!

Nobody is happier than Orren, though. He loves his new car seat because in this one, he can recline OR sit up straight, his choice (of course we have to help him out by positioning his seat to his liking, but he'll let us know if he needs it moved), and he's no longer stuffed into that too small car seat. This one doesn't box him in like any infant car seat would, so he's not as hot in it either. That's a big deal when you live in the desert, because people, it's hot here.

Here's our big boy in his Britax Diplomat! Of course, big sis had to get in there, too.


We'll take a pic of it in the car tomorrow when it isn't dark out. It does exactly what it says it does. It fits easily in a compact car, but it's still a Britax, and has all the quality and features of the bigger models. We're SO happy with it.

Photo of the day: Adrenaline, Border Style

OK, so I snagged the slogan "Adrenaline, Border Style" from a billboard on I-10 in the middle of El Paso advertising a 4-wheeler dealership, but it's what came to mind when I saw Erin outside driving her Jeep around the yard. She loves having a big yard to drive her Jeep around in, and we love having a fenced yard so we can let her do basically what she wants.



And a bonus. Proof that we have grass in at least one tiny part of our yard. I caught Erin sitting there and picking the grass like flowers. I guess that's how you know you're in the desert!

It's an SUV world.

Orren has just about outgrown his infant car seat. For those who haven't seen our car seat, it's the Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP. It supposedly goes up to 30 inches in height and 22 pounds, but Orren is really beginning to get uncomfortable in there at 27 inches and (I'm guessing) about 18 pounds. So basically, we got almost four months' use out of this seat, but hey, at least we can still use it with the next baby. It still looks new. The reasons we bought a Peg Perego system are the excellent safety ratings and the fact that the upholstery is extremely high quality and easy to clean. It stays looking brand new for so long.

Well, now that we're in the market for a regular convertible car seat for Orren to ride in until he's preschool age and ready for a booster, we had to do some more research on what the best brands are these days. That's when we found Britax. Sure, the seats average $300 apiece, but can you really put a price on safety? They have some of the best ratings in the world. That piqued our interest, and reading reviews from other parents, in addition to talking with people we know who already own Britax car seats, cemented our decision to buy one for Orren.

Then it happened. We were at Babies R Us in Savannah one day, and saw these Britax car seats, and they were MONSTROSITIES!! I mean, one of them would take up over half the back seat of my car. It was totally impractical for us, especially considering that we do plan on another baby in the near future, and unless it's twins or more, we're not going to be upgrading to a larger car, probably ever. We need to fit two car seats plus Erin's booster in the back seat, and still be able to close the doors. It's a must.

Then on a fluke, we found the Britax Diplomat. Excellent! It's got all the safety features of the other Britax seats, but it's scaled down in size, made especially for compact cars. DING DING DING! We have a winner!

So this morning, I went online to order our new car seat, so excited about receiving it by the end of the week, or at the latest, next week. So I clicked on over to the website offering free 1-2 day shipping on all Britax purchases, and submitted my order. Oops. It wouldn't go through. Seems the bank has to change the address on my card and Thak's card separately. Silly me for thinking they could just change it on the whole account all at once... I know, what was I thinking?!

So we decide, screw ordering online. We live in a city of 2 million people. Somewhere in this city is a Britax Diplomat car seat for us to buy and take home with us today, so we took off to several baby stores, and found plenty of Britax, but only the huge ones. No dice. Finally, before driving to the other side of the mountains to check out some of the more upscale baby stores on the west side of town, we came home to call around and ask. (This city is too big to just drive around all day looking in various stores! You'll use a whole tank of gas in one day like that!) and in calling around, we did find ONE Britax Diplomat in the entire freaking city of El Paso.........

........and it was tan. The interior of my car is black and gray. We have to have the Onyx or Cowmooflauge print. (I want the cow print. Thak does not. We're getting the Onyx.) So no dice on buying in person today. We just have to order online and wait. :( We were looking forward to getting Orren out of that almost too small seat, and we still have to wait.

The thing that kills me is that in this entire city, there was only ONE compact Britax car seat to be found. The thing that kills me even more is that the people, when I'd call and ask about the Diplomat, would always try to sell me the Marathon or the Boulevard, both of which are pretty much the size of my entire car. Upon explaining that I drive a Chevy HHR, and have more than one child, I usually get a weird look, or an awkward silence. Please tell me we're not the only people who see pretty much anything with more than two doors and a functional back seat as a perfectly suitable family car. Does EVERYONE buy the massive SUV or minivan the minute they get pregnant with their first these days? It's as if people regard a giant vehicle as requisite to parenthood these days. What the hell, man....

Orren sits unsupported

OK, so he's leaning a little forward in this pic, and was trying to grab the camera right after this was taken, but now you see it. Orren sits unsupported. He doesn't do it for long, but he can definitely do it. (No, Erin's not holding him up. She just put her hand on his shoulder when she got in the pic with him. PS, Aren't the school uniforms awesome in TX? Not!)


I think this is also one of the only ones that's really of him at 3 months, so that's kind of good, too. As you can see, he's still growing like a weed!

Even the Army is capable of good choices.

We're a little behind on our Army Times subscription because we had to have our mail forwarded from GA to here, so the Army Times issues we got yesterday were on the news stands three weeks ago, but that doesn't matter. They were the ones we wanted to read more than we have ever wanted to read any Army Times issue in the history of the Army Times (other than the one in which Thak's name appeared in the list of new Staff Sergeants. That one was just this good.)

These Army Times issues dealt with Stop Loss policy changes. Now, Stop Loss is this thing that we all know about when we sign our enlistment contracts, but was never really used at all until this Iraq war started. It basically allows the Army to keep soldiers in as long as they want past their ETS (get out) dates, in order to get one more deployment out of them. I know people who deployed with Thak's brigade last time who were kept in a full year past their ETS dates in order to deploy for the 2007 troop surge. Stop Loss is a backdoor draft. Make no mistake about it. It is also what could have caused Thak to have a fourth tour before getting out, and to not be able to get out on time as planned.

However, the Army is phasing it out, and it will be dead before Thak's ETS date. There will be no Stop Loss at play when it would be possible (but still supremely unlikely) for his brigade to come up on orders. Stop Loss is being replaced with incentive pays for soldiers to extend their enlistments in order to deploy with their units. Well, obviously, for us, there's no amount of money in the world that's worth a fourth tour, far less the $6000 they're offering for it (total of monthly bonuses, that is. It's not lump sum.) $6000 is not nearly enough to make it even cross our mind to consider whether we would go through deployment hell again. Unbelievably enough, they'll probably keep a lot of people in with that, though, so it's a good policy.

Under the new policy, soldiers who have 6+ months left on their contract when the unit deploys will deploy with the unit, but be sent back 90 days prior to their ETS date to out process.

Soldiers with less than 6 months left on their contracts will be left back, and forced to get out 3 months early. This is the category Thak will fall into if his brigade does get orders within the next two years. (Again, this is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY.) So if it happened, he would be getting out in February 2011 instead of May 2011. Either way works great for us.

So, Stop Loss, you had a good run, screwed up a lot of people's lives, and even got some people killed after they should have been out of the Army completely. We won't miss you, stop loss, and we're thankful you won't have the opportunity to get us.

Speaking of backdoor drafts, I'm out of the IRR this July. That means that my time of being eligible for call back to active duty is coming to a close. After this July 4, they can never call me back as long as I live. Our family is so close to being done with Uncle Sam forever. It feels good to be short timingfor sure now, knowing that stop loss won't get us at the last minute.

Friday, Friday!

I had another coffee to go to this morning, and while I was there, Thak called me. He was on his way home for lunch (yeah, the coffee ran long today!!) and wanted to tell me all about his new unit. Today is his first day there. They took the brigade and broke it down into battalions yesterday, so he never had to be just sitting there in limbo at brigade HQ for several months, waiting for about 3000 more people to show up. He's going straight to his battalion. The other thing is that he is NOT in 41st Infantry. He is in a BSB (Brigade Support Battalion) which means he will be doing Direct Support level maintenance on generators. That is excellent. At his rank, he should be doing absolutely nothing less.

He's still at work right now, but should be getting off soon. The only weird thing about this unit so far is that he had to do PT in the afternoon. The other girls at the coffee say that's normal for here. It's the first time I've seen it other than for people on the fat boy program, which Thak certainly is not. I guess every post has their little idiosynchrasies.

The good part is that Thak will be working on Biggs Army Airfield, which is nearer to our house than Ft. Bliss. They don't have the facilities for his unit built yet, but they're working on it. According to another Staff Sergeant of the same unit, they're building all kinds of other things out there, too, like a PX and Commissary. That will be nice, because when I went to the commissary on Ft. Bliss yesterday, the line for the checkout must have been 100 people long. Now granted, I wasn't in it for more than half an hour because they move really fast there, but the post needs two commissaries if they have lines that long on a day that isn't even payday. Putting one on Biggs is the perfect solution, and benefits us greatly. I don't know what I'll do with a brand new commissary! I'm still pretty damn stoked about the one on Ft. Bliss, which was built circa my enlistment (2001), because it's a huge upgrade from the Ft. Stewart one which was built circa the Jurrasic period.

Otherwise, this weekend is going to be insane. In a wives' group I'm involved with, there are two girls who have things going on which warrant food deliveries (one is having a baby as we speak, and the other's husband just got out of surgery) so I'm going to be taking dinner to the one whose husband had surgery tomorrow, and then on Monday, I'm taking dinner to the husband and children of the girl who's having a c-section right now. (We all took a day to bring food. I'm one of seven volunteers.) I totally forgot that we were planning on going to Carlsbad on Saturday when I accepted the first request, but I guess we can go on Sunday. I just have to get everything done on Saturday so there's nothing for me to do on Sunday when we get home from Carlsbad in the way of getting ready for the week to start. Saturday's better for being around here anyhow. The post-wide yard sale is going on, and it's HUGE! I definitely want to go. Everyone goes, plus, I may find some clothes for Orren there. He's about to be in a 12 months size full time, and we only have a few things that big, so it's the yard sale or the Carters outlet! But if we don't get to Carlsbad this weekend, it'll be there next weekend, too. This weekend is going to be packed, but that's not a bad thing.

Big Orren!

So yesterday at the park, Orren sat unsupported for like half a minute. He's not so into laying down. This one likes to sit up, and stand. But yeah, 3 months old, and sitting unsupported. Wow!

He's still really big for his age, too. He is beginning to outgrow some of his 9 month clothes, and has been in some 12's for a little while now. I think we might have to just move him up to a 12 by next month. If we don't have a boy next time, that will suck because we have all these barely worn boys' clothes. I really hope we have another boy so we at least get a little bit of use out of all these clothes eventually.

Erin didn't grow like this. She stayed in each size for a while, and at this age, she wore a 3-6 months. Orren? Well, ma, these 9's are getting kind of short... Haha!

I'm excited about starting solid foods with him next month, though. We're definitely going to give it a try at 4 months and see if he's ready. He wants food. He cries every time we eat, and reaches for our food. He's going through formula like it's going out of style, and he's just not getting full. He needs solids, and if he'll take them at 4 months, well, I'll be glad to give them to him.

I've never seen anything like this boy. Erin was very normal, a very average baby in most ways, and that's what I got used to. Orren is insane. They are just so different.

First day

Thak is at work now for the first time in over a month. He begins in-processing today. We're officially of Ft. Bliss now. This time next week, he'll be starting at his unit.

Easter

Easter morning was a success, despite the fact that, in true West Texas character, the winds were beyond gale force last night, and all the eggs had to be hidden inside. Had we hidden them outside, they'd have been in Oklahoma by the time we woke up this morning.

Anyhow, pics...

Everything all set up:


Orren looks adorable in his hat:


Erin likes her monkey notebook. (Totally NOT coincidental that both our monkeys got monkey stuff!)


This book is pretty good, big sis!

No es lejos, pero la vida es muy diferente a mi vida aqui.

Cuando conducimos a casa despues de termine a las jardines, Thak conduce muy lentamente cuando proximo Juarez, Mexico. Tomo los photos en coche, de ventana. No son muy bueno, pero puedes ver que pobre son los de Juarez, y que proximo de mi ciudad, El Paso.

Juarez es un poco como un pinura de Diego Rivera, a me. Es hermosa a me, pero no como aqui.

Tenemos suerte. Somos Americanos.

El Paso Desert Botanical Garden

We went to the botanical garden today! It's on the west side of town, through the mountain pass, but it's only 13 miles on the interstate across town, so it's no big deal to us, not after living in Hinesville and having to drive 40+ miles to ANYTHING.

The botanical garden was absolutely beautiful! It was far smaller than the one back home (Kanapaha), but still well worth the cost of admission and then some ($2 for adults, $1 for kids and active duty military, abd $0 for babies, so a total of $4 got us in.) The volunteers there were super nice, and as we were leaving, they were sure to send us off with pamphlets about the archaelogical significance of the site (which is actually extremely cool), coloring sheets of local species for Erin, and an invite to the annual open house festivities which are going on next week. All in all, it was a fun way to spend a bit of a Saturday afternoon.

Anyhow, like many things, this is worthless without pics, so here you go.

Koi pond at the entrance:

Closer shot of the koi:

Erin and Orren by one of the gardens:


Mosaic on the wall. They're everywhere.


All of us in front of the wetland. It's the last remaining one along the banks of the Rio Grande. There used to be tons of them, but they've all been destroyed, except this one. Audobon Society looks for birds out there a lot, and has found like five species that are considered rare, in addition to dozens which are not. It's pretty cool.


I liked these little yellow flowers. They were like puffballs, and the tree was almost willow-like, but also looked kind of Asian. This reminded me of things you see in Japanese art sometimes, only the flowers aren't usually yellow there.


Erin and yellow flowers:


Cactus and succulent garden:




House maze:



Kids' archaeological dig. There are like ten sandboxes like that one, some with white sand, others with red.



Childrens' garden:


A bonus pic of Orren when he took a little break from eating his blankie:


Me and Erin with brightly colored flowers:



Erin in the formal garden:

Orren gets a fade.

Orren got his first haircut today. He now has a fade like daddy. Well... ok, not quite like daddy, since he didn't have enough hair to actually fade it, so he has kind of a line, but it doesn't matter. It's still cute. He no longer has long hair on the bottom and short hair on top. Now he has short hair on the top, and no hair on the bottom. It's ADORABLE!!

This story is worthless without pics. All pics taken by Erin.


Getting started...


Concentrate, daddy!
This kind of tickles, mom!



Switch sides!


Gotta even it up. (BTW, The red spot is a birth mark, not a scratch.)



All done! So cute!!!



Just like daddy!

A good start.

I went to a wives' coffee this morning, and it went great. I met nice people, with nice kids Erin and Orren's ages, who aren't boring. You just can't ask for much better. These people are sane, and they're not the overly PC or overly dramatic crazy people I ran into all the time at Ft. Stewart. On the contrary, these people know that rank does play a role in determining who our peers are, and don't try to live under the delusion that a Staff Sergeant's wife in her late 20's or early/mid 30's should try to be best friends with a Private's wife who turned 18 last week. That was my biggest pet peeve about the wives I had known before, and it doesn't exist with these. That's good because Ft. Bliss has more young wives than any place I've ever seen, and at this point in my life, I have no interest in grasping at straws for polite conversation with 18-year-olds who think they're God's gift because their husband completed Basic Training a month ago. Not that there's anything wrong with those people, but I would rather know them in more of a mentor capacity. That's the way it's supposed to be, just as it is with our husbands, and these people think the same way as I do about this stuff. I cannot even tell you how relieved I was to find that out.

We're planning a girls' playdate very soon so that everyone with with daughters in Kidergarten and First Grade can all get together at a park and allow Erin to make some friends. Don't get me wrong, people with sons that age would also be welcome. It just happens that everyone with kids about Erin's age have daughters. Ironically, a lot of these people also have baby boys, so this is kind of a two-for-one thing for when Orren gets a little bigger and can do playgroups and stuff.

I'm going to love it here!!! Thak's hectic schedule won't be so hard if the kids and I have friends, and we're well on our way to that after this morning.

Reasearch and more research

I did some digging. I wanted answers to my questions, and I found them, finally. I found out that Thak's classes will be from 6-10 PM Monday-Thursday. He'll have Fridays off! That's so awesome! He will also have time to stop by home, get changed into his school uniform, and grab something to eat on the way to school. It takes 20 minutes to get there from here, and about 20 minutes from post to home, so there's about 20 minutes of downtime in between, which is good. The kids will at least see him for a few minutes those days. But FRIDAYS ARE OFF!!! That's great. It's also great because it means that there are only four class days a week that the Army can potentially mess up, meaning if Thak has to go to the field for two weeks, for example, he'll only use up 8 of his military days rather than 10, and since he gets 30 military excused days per calendar year, having one less day per week that will require one in the event of field training or TDY can only be a good thing. I don't know that I love the idea of him being at school until 10, but there is no choice.

This school is really expensive, too. Let's just say his two years there will cost nearly as much as we paid for my car, brand new, deluxe model, second year it was made... You can imagine, my jaw hit the floor when I saw that dollar amount. I didn't know HOW we were going to pay that, but then I did some googling. The Post-9/11 GI Bill pays ALL tuition and fees to any accredited school (including technical programs) in any amount up to that of the most expensive public university in the state. Thank goodness the VA had a chart of what that figure is for every state. For Texas, we're not even close to the max. Not even close. His GI Bill will cover this completely. Of course, that GI Bill doesn't kick in until August, so we've got to cover a few days of April, May, June, and July, and we will be reimbursed for that through the Army's Tuition Assistance Program. That will pretty much max out his yearly amount for TAP, but that's ok. The new GI Bill will kick in after that, and we still won't have to pay anything at all.

I'm glad to be getting this figured out. It's a lot, but it's going to work out. Somehow, some way, it's going to work out. The resources are there, and the ball is in our court. I'll be glad when he begins his classes, and getting them done. I'll be glad when all this is over, but I'm still really happy that he's doing it.

ASE in 23 months!

We went today for a visit at the tech school Thak is going to be attending for his ASE certification. It's really nice. They partner with a lot of really reputable companies for the mechanics' programs. They are a partner with Matco tools (I think that's what they're called.... They're really good, though. Thak said so.) and every mechanic gets his own set of Matco tools upon graduation, which is important since you need to have your own tools in order to work in the field. Thak has most of that stuff already, but this way he'd have a set for work and a set for home, so it's great. The school also partners with BMW, Mercades Benz, Jaguar, Volvo, and Volkswagen to certify graduates specifically for those brands, and also with Toyota, allowing students to be certified to work on hybrid cars as well as regular ones. Thak has been talking for a while about being a BMW mechanic since that's where the best money is, and this school will allow him to be certified specifically on BMW (in addition to his general certification), and even will help place him with a BMW shop upon graduation.

I don't know if that's what he'll end up doing. Maybe he'll get in there and decide that instead, he wants to work on Mercades, or some other brand which requires its own supplemental certification, but the fact is that the higher end brands are where the real money is for a mechanic, and Thak is the type of mechanic that those types of owners will love. He is meticulous, clean, personable, intelligent, and damn good at what he does. He's the perfect person to work on high-end cars, and that's what he's been talking about doing. I support that fully.

Anyhow, we found out that this course will take him 23 months to complete since he's going at night. It would be 15 months if he did it in the daytime. 23 months puts us one month shy of his ETS date from the Army. That means that when he graduates, he will be on terminal leave, and be ready to be placed in a shop. Even if it ends up taking him longer than that, we've figured out that we will be ok if he gets out, and a couple months later, graduates and starts his civilian job.

This is a big commitment from all of us because it's going to take a lot of his time. Beyond the obvious, classes and such, there is the fact that he'll be trading his weekday Staff Duty shifts as they come up, for weekend shifts instead, so that could cost us as much as one weekend a month. It's worth it, though. This is our ticket out of this Army bullcrap, and we're pretty excited about it.

Like father, like son

Orren was a very tired boy. This is the only way he will go to sleep. He has to lay on daddy. He was out two minutes after this was taken. In fact, he still is.

This week

I still have to find a pediatrician here. Orren will need his 4 month appointment in a few weeks, and I'm NOT taking him on post.

Tomorrow, we have the parent-teacher conference at Erin's school. Of course, there won't be much to discuss since she's only been a student there for a week and an half, but we can tie up the few loose ends which remain. We can also figure out what this Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of Texas is. She's supposed to learn it since they do it every morning along with the one to the US flag.

Thursday is extra exciting. Thak has an appointment at a technical school here in El Paso to get registered for the first of his courses which will ultimately culminate in him being ASE certified. ASE is Automotive Service Excellence. It's basically a professional mechanic's license in the civilian market. We don't know how long ASE certification takes, but we figure it can't be more than two years. Two years is what we have for him to do this, so we're going to get on board as quick as possible. If he gets everything squared away, he will begin his classes on April 21. Like I said, I don't know yet when he will graduate, but we'll find that out soon. It's going to be hectic for us as long as he's in school since he'll be working his usual long hours, and going to classes at night, and the school is on the other side of town, but we'll get through it. We always do. This is a big investment in our future. If he gets his ASE certification, there is no doubt that he will get out of the Army two years from now. There is still great demand for certified mechanics almost everywhere, so this is a great step toward insuring that when his ETS date comes around, there will be no need to visit the re-enlistment NCO.

Friday, Thak signs in, and officially becomes a Ft. Bliss soldier. He won't begin in-processing until Monday, and will go to his unit the following week. Then, and only then, will we find out what this place is going to be like. Actually, it will be August before we find out what it's really like, because in August, his brigade stands up, and he'll go to his battalion, and the motorpool thereof, and finally figure out just what it is that he'll be doing. He could be a generator shop foreman, he could be a motor sergeant, he could be a platoon sergeant. We don't know yet, and it'll be August before we find out. Friday gets us one step closer, though.

This weekend is Easter, and on Saturday, if the weather is nice, I'm trying to talk Thak into going to the botanical gardens in Las Cruces, NM. It's cheap to get everyone in, and it's fun to walk around there. I think the kids will enjoy it, too, because it'll get them out of the house. Plus, Erin loves flowers, and is fascinated by how different the plants are here than they were in Georgia, so this would be good for her. We can actually learn the names of some of these things!

Sunday, we'll probably get the kids all dressed up, do a little egg hunt in the backyard, and eat chicken and dumplings. It's become my standby holiday meal. It's cheap, I'm good at making it, and there's always plenty. You can't beat that.

Well, that's our week. I'll take pics and post them throughout. I'll try to get some of Erin's school, definitely a lot of the botanical gardens, and Easter.

House phone

So I subscribed to Vonage during Thak's 3rd tour, after we ran up a few cell bills which rivaled the car payment, and then never got it set up properly, so we weren't using it.

We got here, and Thak decided to go ahead and try to set it up himself. Of course, it took him all of two seconds, and it worked fine. I just got on with them and got us a local El Paso phone number. We'll probably go ahead and send out a mass text to everyone tomorrow with our new home number, but just in case I forget to do it, if you want out home number, next time you talk to me or Thak, ask for it. Our cell numbers are still unchanged, and will remain so until we have gotten all our deposits back from our place in Georgia, and finalized everything with our move. Probably sometime next week, or the one after, we'll be changing our cell numbers. Look for a text about that also.

He's got style, how 'bout you?!

Nobody ever accused Orren of not being a fashionable fellow.