The Big Move and A Word To My Fellow Army Wives

It has been a long time since my last entry, but we have been a busy family! Randy graduated from ILE and Webster University and we left Fort Leavenworth for Fort Polk. Along the way we stopped and stayed with friends, family and had a great day at Sea World. Upon arriving at Fort Polk, we were a little disappointed to find that we weren't able to see a house the day we arrived, but had to wait until after the weekend. We did, however take a couple of days to explore both main post, and all the housing areas to get an idea of what there was. On Monday, we were shown a very SMALL house, and boy was I disappointed! We then went back to housing, to see what else they had to offer. It turns out that all FGO housing on this post is SMALL, so we decided to just go ahead and take the first house we were shown. The house itself is not my dream home, but the neighborhood is AWESOME. We are on a cul de sac and in the middle of the cul de sac is a huge playground. I love that the kids can play and I can sit in the front yard and watch them. Fort Polk also has wonderful community centers and pools. We have gone swimming almost everyday and it is so nice. We are still living on portable furniture, but our stuff is scheduled to arrive on July 11th. I really, really hope it does, as I cannot take much more sleeping on an air mattress!

Well, enough about the move itself and on to a word to my fellow Army wives. On the 4th we were invited to a BBQ at one of Randy's soon to be co-workers house. Upon arriving, I met four or five husbands in the yard and they informed me the ladies were inside the house. I went in and introduced myself and was immediately inundated with banter about how much Fort Polk sucks! I mean these ladies just went on and on. Now I know that Fort Polk is not high on most people's dream place to PCS list, but in my humble opinion, telling a person that just arrived here how much it sucks and how horrible life is going to be for the next couple of years really isn't a good thing. Maybe Randy and I are weirdos, but we really do try to go into every new place/job looking at it like there is a reason we were sent here. GOD has never let us down, or steered us wrong and that is just the way we look at things. We also love Louisiana. We really enjoyed our time in Monroe and are looking forward to spending more time in this state. So, fellow military spouses, please do not immediately tell people new to an area how much it sucks. Maybe that is why everyone is so down on places like Polk, because no one ever bothers to give the area a chance, they just listen to what other's say and don't bother to form their own opinion. As for me, I am keeping an open mind and just enjoying this nice warm weather!!

Home is where the Army sends us, but I still miss my friends!!

"Home is where the Army sends us." This quote can be found in many different Army homes, and it is true. While we occasionally have some say so, more often than not we are sent to a new duty station to fulfill "the needs of the Army." So far for us, this has worked out and the Army has not sent us someplace that we were absolutely dreading, although I am a little iffy about Fort Polk, but I believe it is what you make of it! The worst part, however, about leaving a duty station is moving away from the good friends you have made. This has been particularly true for me in our last two moves. When we left Hood, I was not only leaving my sister, but had made some really good friends in the Meetup group that I belonged to. It is sad to move on, because you miss so many milestones in the lives of the people that you once saw several times a week. For example, I still haven't gotten to see our good friends Stephanie and Josh Moody's Samantha in person, and I have no clue when I ever will! Here at Leavenworth, we have met so many nice people, but in about the last six months, we have just clicked with the Powell family. I was sad to see all of their stuff getting boxed up yesterday, knowing that meant the end of our time here together was coming to an end. I know that I will make great friends in Louisiana, and who knows, it is a small Army and we may even meet up with people again somewhere along the way, but it is still sad to leave those that you have grown so fond of!

And the trend continues!

I have mentioned before how bad weather/bizarre happenings tend to follow the Day family, and this spring is proving not to disappoint! On Saturday I was supposed to attend the final 6th Infantry Bunco before many of us moved. I spent a good part of the day making some delicious brownies to share and was excited to get some "girl" time! The weather turned fairly ominous about 7:00 pm, but I was hopeful that it was just a thunderstorm and all would be good. My friend Traci stopped by and we headed out the door to walk down the street for Bunco, Traci clutching her umbrella and Strawberry trifle and me balancing my brownies in one hand and my umbrella in the other! We got to the house where Bunco was being held, headed in the door and weren't there for five minutes when the tornado sirens started going off! Now, there were about six of us there when this happened and we all just looked at each other, torn between the need for some serious alcoholic/food fun and the need to make sure our families were okay. It was a tough call, but we all headed back to our respective houses, to make sure the men folk and kids were okay. We did, however, say that if this storm passed quickly, we would all be back! So, I headed back down the street, with my umbrella and brownies and came in to find that Randy and the boys were just playing and getting ready for bed like nothing was going on. Apparently, along with the sound of a crying baby in the middle of the night, my husband can also not hear tornado sirens! I have never experienced tornado like weather, but it is crazy how still everything gets. When I walked down the street to Bunco, it was quite windy, but by the time I got home the wind had completely stopped and it was very, very still. The kids had no idea what was going on, they were just really excited to get to stay up late! We all headed down to the basement, put on a movie for the boys, and Randy and I took turns coming upstairs to see what was going on. Yep, we would be those dumb asses who got sucked up in the tornado, because we were too curious to stay in the basement! We kept checking Weather Bug on my phone to see what was going on, and saw that the tornado warning would expire at 8:30...well the sirens did go off around then, and we brought everyone upstairs to get ready for bed, only to have the sirens start up again! This happened a couple of times, but the sirens finally went off for good around 9:30! By this time, I was too exhausted to head back down the street! Luckily, no tornadoes hit post, although a huge tree in a yard down the street from us split in half and fell down. So, yep, the trend continues, and this may be a long month before we move out of tornado alley!!!

Holy Hair Batman!!

Carter really, really hates to get his haircut. We are talking really hates it. With Cash we have always taken him to the barber shop on post and spent $7, but with Carter we have tried everything, including one of those kids haircut places that charges $20 for a haircut. That all being said, this weekend I was talking to a friend about his and she said that her middle son was the same exact way and her husband purchased a pair of clippers and started cutting his hair and all was good. She said that Ryan would sit just fine for his dad and get a nice cut. Well, I thought to myself, we have clippers and I could do that. I mean come on, how hard could it be?? I came to found, that it can be very, very hard..... Randy had his final masters level class on Tuesday evening and so it was just the kiddos and I at home. The weather was really nice and we were hanging out in the backyard, when I got the brilliant idea that this would be a great time for a haircut. I came in the house and got the clippers and a couple of Popsicles, figuring that I could distract Carter withe the Popsicle and maybe he would not notice what I was doing to his hair. So, I handed him the Popsicle, sat him in a patio chair and turned on the clippers. I went with the biggest guard there was, but Carter's hair is so thick and curly that it didn't even seem to be doing much cutting. On top of that, the Popsicle was really not doing its trick, as Carter was turning and trying to stand up in the chair. At this point, instead of doing the smart thing and just calling it a wash, I proceeded to put the shortest guard on, and this is where the total disaster really began! I got the top of the head pretty short, but he would not sit still for me to get the sides, so he had the bald old man look going. I ran inside for another Popsicle, hoping that this would do the trick and had to chase him around the playhouse when I went back outside, to get him to sit in the chair again. The poor kid was not happy, while he was clutching his hair covered Popsicle and at this point he now just had long tufts of hair covering the sides and back of his head. So.....I decided to come in the house and get the scissors to try to finish off the job. Oh, and by the way, Cash is back there yelling that he wants Mama to cut his hair next @@! I get the scissors, chase Carter around the playhouse again and proceed to try to fix this horrible thing I have don, without chopping off my babies ear. I get a couple of tufts cut off when I realize that this just isn't going to work. I finally just look Carter in the eye, admit that I have completely effed this up and tell him to hang on, it is all coming off and I remove the guard from the clippers. Two minutes later Cash and I are both staring at a completely bald-headed Carter and Cash is asking me what happened to Carter's hair. I felt terrible. The poor kid has some big ears and this really accentuated that. He himself ran into the house and looked in my full length mirror and turned and said, "Hey, where is Carter's hair?" Needless to say, this was my first and last attempt at a home haircut! The only good news is that Carter should not need another haircut for a long, long time!

How Did I Get So Lucky????

As many people know, I was a little bit "older" when I met Randy and we got married. While people are waiting longer to marry these days, by age 32, I was wondering if I would ever find "the one." Once you hit a certain age, it seems like it is harder and harder to meet people. I had great friends at work, but most of them were either married, or in relationships and didn't really want to go out and do the singles scene. I gave my best friend Krista a lot of grief for doing the Internet singles thing, and I swore I would not do it.......that being said, I finally decided I would give it a try, since I wasn't meeting anyone any other way! Boy, did I meet some doozies!!! I usually assigned them names, as it was easier to keep track of them this way. There was T-Rex, who had these really short arms; Corvette man, who was the largest man I had ever seen stuff himself into a tiny car; Stinky, well lets just say if you fart on the first date, you aren't getting a second; Crazy Dave...fairly self explanatory; then there was Howdy Doody! My first date with Doody, he took me hiking and to lunch. I am not much of an outdoorsy girl, and I did worry a bit that he was going to take me to the mountains and chop me up, but it went okay and I agreed to a second date. On our second date we went to the movies. I thought he was a little odd, because he made sure that our arms didn't even touch on the shared armrest. Our third (and supposed to be final) date he took me to a drum recital at UTEP. By this point I had decided this was a nice guy, but a little too nerdy for me and I needed to move on, so I wrote him an e-mail saying that, but without calling him a nerd!! Well, he was composing an e-mail to me at the same time that said he knew he had come off a little nerdy, but he had been married before and things had ended horribly and he didn't want to move too fast.....so, I decided to give him another chance and nine years later here we are, Me and Doody against the world!!! I could not have asked for a better husband or father for my children. He loves me unconditionally, even when I tease him mercilessly and accidentally shave one of the children bald. I often tease him that the third time was a charm for him, but I am indeed the lucky one, and I would not trade my Doody for anyone else!!! I love you, EUGENE!!!! lol

Post Wide Yard Sale

Yesterday was the spring post wide yard sale here on lovely Fort Leavenworth. You are not allowed to have yard sales here on Leavenworth, if you live in quarters, except for on designated days twice a year. We had not been here all that long when the fall sale happened, so we did not participate, but since we are fixing to move again we decided to go ahead and get rid of some stuff. Boy was this an eye-opening adventure! First of all, the sale itself was from 6-3 on Saturday, but most people were out in their garages and driveways getting things priced and together on Friday evening. Starting about 4pm Friday afternoon, the early birds showed up in full force! We are talking 80 year old couples with Iowa plates, folks! We (being the Day family, as I have posted before) were of course no where near ready, so no one stopped at our house, but I swear to God the guy across the street from us had half of his stuff sold by 6pm Friday night! He and his family are PCSing overseas, so they did have a lot of stuff to sell, so I was very happy for him. Fast forward to 5:30am on Saturday morning. Randy got up to get all out big stuff out into the driveway and told me to sleep, but I felt too guilty (and also because I know Randy very well and he just wants to get rid of stuff, so he would sell things at a ridiculously low price if I were not out there to supervise) and went on out to help him. When I stepped out into the garage, there were already people buying stuff, so yay for us! As I said, we didn't have a lot of stuff, so I had a lot of time to just people watch.....and oh what a sight it was! We had been told that people come from four and five states away to attend the sale. I guess since this is the most transient post in the Army, and about 80% of its occupants are officers that will be moving soon, people figure they can get some good stuff. I saw several U Haul trailers and a few trucks. I am guessing these people either owned thrift shops, or were people I had seen are Hoarders:Buried Alive, because they were really serious about their yard saleing! I saw several people on those motorized scooters with baskets piled high, and I even saw one of those suckers that was equipped with its own little trailer. Let me tell you, I saw a lot of stuff I had never seen. The other thing that got me, was the fact that some of these people absolutely REFUSED to pay the price you had on items. I understand trying to bargain, if what you are buying is, oh say, $50. I get the whole, "I will give you $30 for it," thing, but I had a wooden stool in the sale that I had priced at $2. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this stool, I just have two others that are a little taller and I did not need this one anymore. A lady comes by, looks at the stool, turns it upside down and looks at it, asks if she can take it across the street where the ground is level and try it out and then brings it back and proceeds to say, "Will you take $1 for it?" Seriously..it was TWO DOLLARS!! I went ahead and gave it to her for the dollar, just because I had very much enjoyed how seriously she had taken her whole stool shopping thing. All in all, it was a good day. We made about $300 and the entertainment was priceless!!!!

You may not want to follow us around...

Randy and I have noticed a trend amongst the Day family. It seems like whenever we move someplace, or at times visit someplace, there is some sort of bizarre thing, totally out of the norm for the area, that happens while we are there. Some examples: we had not lived in Louisiana for more than six weeks when Katrina hit. Initially we thought we were getting stationed in New Orleans, and I was a little bummed when it turned out to be Monroe, but was way happier with where we ended up after Katrina hit! We were also in Louisiana when Rita hit, so I guess I need to apologize two times to the people of Louisiana. After we left Louisiana, we moved to the Fort Hood area, where crazy ass Nadal Hasan decides to shoot up the place right down the street from Randy's office. In fact, Randy was supposed to be at the procesing center to get some shots, but a meeting ran over and he wasn't able to get there. Thank goodness for small blessings! Next stop, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the area has the worst winter it has had since 1912. They had to cancel school for something like 11 days, and post actually shut down three times, which is unheard of around these parts! Then the Day family loads up and takes a little vacation to St. Louis, where a tornado hits while we are there and destroys the airport. We didn't even know a tornado had hit, since we went to bed so early that night. We woke up to text messages and Facebook postings asking us if we were okay and we had no idea what people were talking about until we turned on the news! So, this summer we are moving back to Louisiana and that does not bode well for the state. I must apologize beforehand for anything that might possibly happen while we are living there, but hopefully we will be able to break this streak we seem to be on!