Uhg. Grrr. Hmmm.

Well, you can put your prayers for daddy on hold for a bit, or redirect them if you please...
The connecting flight to get him to Cali got all messed up, Go Navy! So after being stranded in Utah for almost 24 hours and missing the CFET training, daddy was told to board a plane to come back home since they couldn't get him in for two weeks. Just as he was about to board he was told never mind, they were going to get him in. This happened a few more times, causing a few more missed flights...There are times when I really love the Navy! So now daddy is stuck all alone in the middle of nowhere in Cali until the 31st and what was supposed to be a 2 night trip is now 9 days. He only packed one extra pair of underware. This makes me cry.

Say a prayer for daddy please!

My hubby is going to have a baby tomorrow. Ok, not really, but when he explained all of the "torturous" side affects of the CFET training he has to do tomorrow, I remarked at how closely it resembled birthing a baby.

Loss of blood flow to the head, incredible pain, using breathing techniques to combat fainting due to lack of oxygen, bearing down until you body can't take it any more...

Yes, that sounds like having a baby to me.

I don't know all of the exact details and the correct terminology for the training he is doing but I do know that he will have to tolerate 7 G's and that he can't pass out. Some guy we know said it was the worst 30 seconds of his life.

You can read about something like what he will be doing here and see a video here
and if you Google centrifuge training you can read more...

We took him to the airport this afternoon and prayed with him before saying our teary eyed good-byes. We are always very sad to see him go. He will be gone for only a few days, but he will be sorely missed. He fills our home with laughter and we seem quite dull without him here.

He does get to visit his dad while at the training and this is all very exciting for him so we stay positive by praying for him and sharing in his excitement and joy.
I am told he gets to purchase the video of his own experience, so hopefully I can post it when he gets home.
We are thankful for your prayers, too.

I don't like wasps.

Yesterday while at swimming lessons Butter accidentally stirred up a pot of wasps. She was just sitting beside me on the floor while I was nursing the baby and watching the older children take lessons. She stood up and was messing around the drinking fountain when all of the sudden there were wasps everywhere. Instinct took over and I grabbed Butter by the arm and sort of flug her in front of me and wrapped my body over the baby as we ran for cover. The baby never flinched so I knew he was fine, but Butter was screaming that she got stung. After a comeplete look-over from one of the dad's who happened to be an HM (that is military for Hospital Corpmen and I believe translates as Nurse) we determined that she didn't get a bite even though they were on her. So after checking on the babes and making sure we weren't still under attack, I could pay mind to the incredibly warm and painful sensation running down my arm. The adrenaline was flowing for sure, but there was much more going on here. Yup, I got hit. My elbow swelled up pretty fast and the HM insisted that I run over to medical and have it looked at. He asked if I was allergic and I told him no, but my dad is highly allergic. I have been stug before and I remembered it being painful, but dang, this really hurt! I was just going to wait until lessons were over and go home and lick my wounds but suddenly found that my arm had swelled up pretty good and I felt kind of funny. I called my hubby at work and he came over to meet me at the pool and we went over to medical. Of course I hadn't filled out the paperwork yet from the move and couldn't be seen until I did that, so they gave me some ice and I filled out paperwork. After all of the paperwork I decided to just get some benadryl and go home. Today, it is still very swollen and there is a large red circle covering my entire elbow and it is very warm and painful. Itchyness is starting to set it too, and I definately don't like wasps.

A New Tool and A Special Message

I remember my first pocket knife. It made me feel mature somehow, and I still keep it in my jewelry box today. I don't know what purpose it served, but it was special, fun, and from my dad, and that's all that mattered.

Boy and Guys each bought a knife with their chore money the other day. Of course I was being mom and voicing my fears to dad. They'd only been asking since our trip to Yellowstone, and that was a LONG time ago. Dad won and gave them their knives. Boy's is a small Gerber (like dad's) and Guy's is a Swiss Army Knife. I gave them rules for being careful, lectures about it being a tool and not a toy, reminders of what was ok to cut and what was not, and warnings about what would get your knife chucked into the lake before you could even blink.

Takes me back to when my little brother did something that made my dad chuck his knife out the window while we were driving down a gravel road. It was very effective. So I shared that story with them and I am pretty sure it is still effective some 15 years later.

I watched them carefully spend time cutting grass and poking the ground with their knives before I decided it was safe to go in to make dinner. It wasn't long before Guys came barging in telling me I had to go see what she did. Ugh, my stomach droped (I had a friend recently tell me that they were in the ER just hours after their oldest boy received his pocket knife for Christmas).

But this is what I found when I stepped out the door.

she had used her new tool to make me the most precious message out of a leaf.

I think I am the luckiest mom in the world!

what a sweet doll!

And when it was bed time, Boy remarked "don't you think the second day with my knife will be even better than the first?" I am guessing he feels mature, special, and proud too.

Lil Bird's new teeth.

Lil' Bird is an individual and he wants everyone to know it.

He doesn't think he should have to follow the "normal" order of teething and has cut his eye teeth before the middle teeth. I think he decided to look like a Vampire Bat instead of a Lil' Bird.

either way, he sure is cute!

More of the simple life...

I am not really sure this life is simple, but it is much simpler then it was before. So, for lack of a better title, that is what it is.

Reading some Word with Dad

Playing some DS

and some Chess

and the transformation at bed time all the clothes buckets come off the beds and get put at the table and beds get pulled out too. The table also makes a queen bed and the couch a twin, but they'd prefer to stick to the bunk beds and the floor.

we have switched sleeping places several times, but finally found one that works for everyone. Guys has the top bunk, Peanut and Butter share the bottom (it is a double), the Boy takes the mattress on the floor, (though he actually prefers the floor) and Pops takes the play-pen of course. Oh, and the cats have taken a liking to the tops of the rubbermaids or behind the couch, and the dog sleeps right at the foot of my bed so I trip over her every time I get the baby in the middle of the night.

Feeding the Flock

The biggest challenge (for me at least) has been the cooking. I just finally disciplined myself to home cook all of our meals this past January, and now I have to go and change it.

First, there are all kinds of really yummy restaurants really close by, and that is a huge temptation for me. Why would I want to cook when I could have someone else do the dishes?

Next, how does one keep a kitchen with no refrigerator? Ok, so I have a refrigerator. It is just very, very small.

It's a good thing we don't buy milk by the gallon. I am very glad we brought the deep freeze, and that saves us, but you can't keep salad in the freezer. I find that I am having to cook so there are almost no left-overs and I need to buy the small size yogurt since the big one wouldn't fit. I have to change the way I plan and shop for meals. I really wish I had more room for salad. I hope I'll have the system all figured out by the time dad needs packed lunches on a daily basis. (mental note, regular size fridge in the next RV)

Here is the real challenge:
By my own choice I am not using the oven or stove. I want the LP left off in the trailer because I like to avoid extra risks (I am, at times, a ninny). LP is Liquid Petroleum a.k.a. Propane in case you were wondering. This means that I am not using the stove, oven, or hot water heater (hence using the coffee pot for dish water). It just gives me the heebejeebies. You wouldn't bring your grill inside would you? I can't see how is using an LP powered stove is any different. Never mind the LP decector right beside the stove...

So I am limiting myself to using my electric skillet, crock pot, rice cooker, and the grill outside. Whenever Dad suggests turning on the LP, I come up with a way around it. Like yesterday when I made scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and turkey sausage for breakfast. I only have one electric skillet and three things to cook. Of course I can't just cook them all together, Guys and I really dislike eggs. I can't cook them one at a time and have cold potatoes by the time the eggs are done. So my solution? I cooked the potatoes and kept them in the crock pot on low, then I browned the sausage and put it beside the potatoes in the crock pot, then I cooked the eggs and served it up. Turned out perfectly!

I think I will spend more time on this cooking BLOG and have dad drop by the commissary for some salad on his way home from work every other day. I am hoping to find a farmer's market close by too, because I don't want to sacrifice eating healthy on account of a small fridge.

Dad said I'm going to have to give in with the LP when winter comes and we are freezing our behinds off. But I brought an electric heater. It has a remote and thermostat and we used it to heat the entire upstairs of our huge house in Colorado so I know it will be sufficient. I win!

As far as cooking goes, please feel free to share with me some great receipes that only require one pot (I can use it on the grill outside), an electric skillet, or crock pot... I'd love to hear your ideas and suggestions so I can still bring my family to green pastures. Thanks!

Our First Week

Well, it's been over a week actually, and I have been writing blog posts in my head the entire time. I thought I was going to have tons of time with nothing to do living the simple life, ha! I have gone to bed exhausted each night. It has been wonderful!
We have gone to the pool, gone to a really awesome park with a lake, battled ants, read all about Joshua, ate real southern barbeque and drank real southern sweet tea, we've met our neighbors, discovered other homeschoolers here in our community, caught frogs and chased lizards, gone to swim lessons, spent hours at the local book store, went to a Southern Baptist Church Service, played kick-ball, started reading some great books, fed geese at the lake, and had several picnics...

We've got the inside of our home all situated with a place for everything, now if I could just keep everything in it's place! We still need to set up our yard and all of our outside stuff, but we've got plenty of time for that.
Some of the things I was worried were going to be difficult were dishes, laundry, showers, and cooking. Here is what is going on with that:

Doing dishes hasn't really been bad. We have been taking turns and working as a team and we can knock out dinner dishes is just a few minutes and have the kitchen looking spiffy in a snap. We've adjusted to not having a garbage disposal or dishwasher. The only delay is that we are using the coffee pot to make the water warm for dishes. More about that in the cooking post later...

Since the bath houses are so nice here, we haven't even used the shower in our home. It is a bit small, and it serves as our dirty laundry and storage room. So we load up the wagon with our shower stuff and get everyone showered up all at once. The wagon actually fits into the shower, so Pops can sit in the wagon while I am washing up. He also gets a bath in the kitchen sink. He loves it.

Laundry is a bit more of a challenge. We make a lot of dirty laundry. Seriously. The basket was overflowing and I decided I needed to tackle it before it got out of hand. I loaded up all the laundry into the wagon and pushed it up the huge steep hill to the bath house. I was able to stuff almost all of our laundry into the commercial size washer for only $5. I did the towels as a separate load in the small washer and I left the whites out for next time, but everything else went into the big one. I got chased by a huge beetle and had to make an extra trip for money since the children loved sorting through the quarters from the change machine to find the states still missing from their collection. We had to time the loads so as not to leave people waiting and ended up making a few extra trips up there, what a work-out! I find myself saying "that's not really dirty, you can wear it again tomorrow" way more than I ever used to say. I am really thinking about looking for a wash board from an antique shop and trying that out, just for kicks. We each only brought one rubbermaid of clothes and we have all agreed that we still have too much. It's amazing how things change.
I never would have guessed that my first week living in a new town could feel like a vacation. I have been spending some really wonderful quality time with my family and I am so blessed. I can't find one single thing to complain about. Coming from me, that says a lot! We all really love Meridian and we really believe we will love life in a travel trailer.

Moving and Cleaning

Looking back at these pictures, I am amazed that the exhaustion I felt is far from my memory. I am so glad that it is over, but I am sad too. Thank-you to my dear friend, for suggesting that we take on the military housing giants and clean the place ourselves. Not because I enjoy cleaning, and I am not even sure it was worth the $ we saved, but it was worth the memories! And of course, a big thank-you to all who helped and shared the elbow grease and laughter.

Inspection time: After the housing office went through with a fine tooth comb and said it was un-sat (not good enough) an exhausted and newly pregnant friend came to my rescue helping me clean, and another already very busy friend watched my little lambs. We realized in the light of day some spots had defiantly been missed. So we cleaned some more and took care of the other unfinished tasks of which we were never informed. The housing giants then called in the corporate bosses because of my arguments (thanks for the nudging, hubby) about cruddy blinds and cheap flooring (I won) and we paid a total of $191. We would have had to pay that in addition to the cleaning fee ($350) if we chose not to clean it ourselves, so it was a nice save.

It was now hours after our expected departure time and we found out we had to rush off to the other base down in P'cola because we were not informed of some paperwork that was supposed to be picked up. Several hours later than desired, we finally headed off for our new life.

I was a bit grouchy but the ride was smooth and went pretty quickly. We got caught in a big storm, but with a prayer it passed over quickly. Because of all the delays we had to set up in the dark, but that too, wasn't so bad.
Now we are just getting the boxes unpacked and exploring our surroundings.

You'll have to read more about our new home in a later post.

What a sweet scene.

Handsome little man on the fast bike, brrrrrrm brrum. Little lady, sweet as can be, cookin up a good meal...