So what exactly are we doing down here anyway? I keep getting that question a lot, so I may as well answer it. :) My dear husband is doing the Captains Career Course at Ft. Sam... one of those things required for all captains who plan on staying in (as the course title would suggest)... designed to develop leadership qualities needed for command and staff positions, etc. It's actually been filled with a lot of useful information already, much to his pleasant surprise. ;) It's also been pretty intense and challenging in certain ways... which really is a good thing, since military leaders obviously need to handle stressful situations well. Between some crazy PT and the long hours spent studying, it's pretty draining, but I know he is going to do a fantastic job. He always does. :) I don't think anyone else brought their families with them, but I am glad that we came, because kisses go a long way in making both of our days much better! :)
We knew we'd have to make a lot of sacrifices to be able to afford a place to stay down here, but we got a HUGE deal from a hotel that gave us a 2-bedroom suite for less than the cost of a cheap Motel 6.... praise God! Anyone looking for a good military special should contact us and we'll tell you the details! It is right on the interstate which makes travel easier (despite the very heavy traffic) and the windows are relatively sound-proof so you don't realize how close you are to the interstate unless you have the windows open. We even have a little walk-in kitchen with a stove, micro, fridge, and toaster oven. I picked up a $6 hand mixer and $2 mixing bowl from Walmart, along with some $1 Big Lots specials on wooden spoons, baking pan, etc., so we don't quite have to live on Ramen and oatmeal. ;) (Though with the budget, we are doing a lot of that anyway. :) Happily, the kids really enjoy both of those staples!) I am very excited that I will be able to actually bake a small-but-good Easter dinner this weekend, too! Having an oven is a great blessing!!!
It was a crazy week last week, with a lot of adjustments for everyone... very tiring, but we all got through it! I had hoped that my birthday would be a little respite from the craziness, but as it turns out, it started off rough, and my birthday present – which was dinner at our favorite, inexpensive Mexican restaurant on the Riverwalk – ended up giving my dear husband food poisoning... which was NOT a good ending to his very busy week. :( Maybe we can have a re-do at some point. ;)
Halfway through Holy Week now.... His grace will get us through all the challenges that the next 8 weeks will bring – along with your prayers, of course! Have a blessed Triduum!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Country mouse... city mouse!
The rest of the trip... ;)
March 18th: Left Jackson TN early in the morning, and enjoyed seeing more and more flowers popping up along the sides of the road. Just outside Memphis, we saw our first flowering trees! The kids were very excited, but they kept getting more antsy in the car... can't blame them on the third day. Poor Ryan. I think he believes we are never going to be done! They also got to experience the bumpity-bump of the (red) Arkansas roads... I'm telling you, I think they MAKE those roads so bumpy on purpose to discourage drivers from trying to drink anything while they are driving. Not a terrible idea (but having been a pregnant woman on those roads, I can tell you that I did NOT enjoy it... if you're driving, you have to pee constantly from baby bouncing... if you're not driving, they just make you sick. ;) ) Having driven on those roads quite a few times over the last 7 years, and seeing the amounts of construction they've done and yet how bumpy the roads still are, I think Arkansas is just going to permanently stay bumpy. Anyway, today was our shortest drive - only 8 1/2 hours. We were so happy to arrive in the border city of Texarkana, TX (creative name, huh? They are also proud of their state name in Arkansas.... seems like everything has it in there somewhere... but I think the one that takes the cake is Arkadelphia. ;) ) Texarkana is actually a nice city with nice hotels, etc... we make a point of stopping at their Hampton, because it has the best free breakfast anywhere, beautiful pool, super-comfy, and has great military specials. So it is definitely something we looked forward to ALL day!
March 19th: FINAL DAY!!!! I think Ryan actually started accepting the car better, because he didn't cry when we put him in his seat, and only cried when he was hungry or frustrated (much less than the other days). I think he believed that the rest of his life was going to be in the car and he'd better start liking it. ;) The whole day was Texas. Texas, Texas, Texas. For over 10 hours. Flat and boring, mostly... and by the time we hit Dallas, those flowering trees we'd just seen yesterday morning for the first time (in Memphis) were already losing their flowers and getting leaves! So, apparently we drove "through" the season of spring in less than 2 days. ;) But, at least there is some green grass and those tiny Spanish oaks with little green leaves on them - the leaves never get big - and some flowers here and there... it's about the only time of year you will see either flowers OR green grass in most of TX. ;) (The eastern part, anyway... I hear the hill country is supposed to be prettier, but that is in western TX.) The kids thought that it was really funny that while TN had mostly black roads, the Arkansas roads were all red, and the Texas roads are all tan. We ended up having a lot of discussions about the colors of dirt. :)
Traffic was so heavy from Dallas to Austin, which covers several hundred miles... it was NUTS. It was almost like rush hour that whole time. Then we realized that Austin was having that huge "South by Southwest" week-long conference thing, which was probably not helping the traffic. Once we actually (finally) got into the downtown Austin area, we ran into a little slow traffic but nothing major. Heavy traffic continued from Austin to San Antonio, about another 2 hours... and then we were finally HERE!!! Our hotel (which we got SUPER cheap, thanks to the manager pulling some strings!!) is right on Interstate 10, right in the middle of the business district of the city. Super busy, tons of traffic all the time... huge corporation complexes surround us... (incl USAA, so that is cool.... never realized how many blocks that place takes up!) Tons of restaurants, stores, offices, etc...
What a difference from home, huh? It took me awhile last year to get used to being in the middle of "nowhere" and having to drive 30 minutes just to get groceries or get anything... but it has grown on me, and I really enjoy being able to see the stars (wow, what stars!) in the backyard, rarely having to deal with traffic, etc. The people up there are very friendly and everyone sticks together (sort of a must when you're dealing with feet of snow and temps well below zero much of the time.) Now, we are in the middle of EVERYTHING... so many stores, you can't even tell what you're driving by! It's one of the busiest business districts I've ever seen, incl in busy MD. So - though we are missing home - we are trying to look at this as an adventure, and are planning on enjoying being so close to everything we need... and are going to try to get out and do stuff before the weather gets brutally hot soon. :)
Thank you, St. Joseph, for getting us here safely and giving us a place to stay (on your feast day!) Please help Daddy during his training, and help us all grow closer as a family through the ups and downs!
March 18th: Left Jackson TN early in the morning, and enjoyed seeing more and more flowers popping up along the sides of the road. Just outside Memphis, we saw our first flowering trees! The kids were very excited, but they kept getting more antsy in the car... can't blame them on the third day. Poor Ryan. I think he believes we are never going to be done! They also got to experience the bumpity-bump of the (red) Arkansas roads... I'm telling you, I think they MAKE those roads so bumpy on purpose to discourage drivers from trying to drink anything while they are driving. Not a terrible idea (but having been a pregnant woman on those roads, I can tell you that I did NOT enjoy it... if you're driving, you have to pee constantly from baby bouncing... if you're not driving, they just make you sick. ;) ) Having driven on those roads quite a few times over the last 7 years, and seeing the amounts of construction they've done and yet how bumpy the roads still are, I think Arkansas is just going to permanently stay bumpy. Anyway, today was our shortest drive - only 8 1/2 hours. We were so happy to arrive in the border city of Texarkana, TX (creative name, huh? They are also proud of their state name in Arkansas.... seems like everything has it in there somewhere... but I think the one that takes the cake is Arkadelphia. ;) ) Texarkana is actually a nice city with nice hotels, etc... we make a point of stopping at their Hampton, because it has the best free breakfast anywhere, beautiful pool, super-comfy, and has great military specials. So it is definitely something we looked forward to ALL day!
March 19th: FINAL DAY!!!! I think Ryan actually started accepting the car better, because he didn't cry when we put him in his seat, and only cried when he was hungry or frustrated (much less than the other days). I think he believed that the rest of his life was going to be in the car and he'd better start liking it. ;) The whole day was Texas. Texas, Texas, Texas. For over 10 hours. Flat and boring, mostly... and by the time we hit Dallas, those flowering trees we'd just seen yesterday morning for the first time (in Memphis) were already losing their flowers and getting leaves! So, apparently we drove "through" the season of spring in less than 2 days. ;) But, at least there is some green grass and those tiny Spanish oaks with little green leaves on them - the leaves never get big - and some flowers here and there... it's about the only time of year you will see either flowers OR green grass in most of TX. ;) (The eastern part, anyway... I hear the hill country is supposed to be prettier, but that is in western TX.) The kids thought that it was really funny that while TN had mostly black roads, the Arkansas roads were all red, and the Texas roads are all tan. We ended up having a lot of discussions about the colors of dirt. :)
Traffic was so heavy from Dallas to Austin, which covers several hundred miles... it was NUTS. It was almost like rush hour that whole time. Then we realized that Austin was having that huge "South by Southwest" week-long conference thing, which was probably not helping the traffic. Once we actually (finally) got into the downtown Austin area, we ran into a little slow traffic but nothing major. Heavy traffic continued from Austin to San Antonio, about another 2 hours... and then we were finally HERE!!! Our hotel (which we got SUPER cheap, thanks to the manager pulling some strings!!) is right on Interstate 10, right in the middle of the business district of the city. Super busy, tons of traffic all the time... huge corporation complexes surround us... (incl USAA, so that is cool.... never realized how many blocks that place takes up!) Tons of restaurants, stores, offices, etc...
What a difference from home, huh? It took me awhile last year to get used to being in the middle of "nowhere" and having to drive 30 minutes just to get groceries or get anything... but it has grown on me, and I really enjoy being able to see the stars (wow, what stars!) in the backyard, rarely having to deal with traffic, etc. The people up there are very friendly and everyone sticks together (sort of a must when you're dealing with feet of snow and temps well below zero much of the time.) Now, we are in the middle of EVERYTHING... so many stores, you can't even tell what you're driving by! It's one of the busiest business districts I've ever seen, incl in busy MD. So - though we are missing home - we are trying to look at this as an adventure, and are planning on enjoying being so close to everything we need... and are going to try to get out and do stuff before the weather gets brutally hot soon. :)
Thank you, St. Joseph, for getting us here safely and giving us a place to stay (on your feast day!) Please help Daddy during his training, and help us all grow closer as a family through the ups and downs!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
1000 miles down - another 1000 to go! :)
March 16th: After spending a couple of days in Buffalo (always nice to see Tim's family, and an added bonus: it knocked 4 hours off the start of our trip :) ) we left at 10:30 AM for our first destination city of Cincinnati. Took us over 9 1/2 hours to get there... Ryan screamed most of the way, poor baby... and kept throwing his leg over the top of his car seat. We made 6 stops (though only got out of the car once, at a gas station) to nurse him and let the kids pee... several more stops than we would usually make for a trip that length, but Ryan in particular was desperate. Thankfully, the kids are expert at going in cups, LOL... obviously have spent a lot of time on road trips. ;) Taking two cars has been a challenge, but it will be good once we get down to San Antonio so that I won't have to get the kids up at 4am every day just to get Tim onto post. I had a terrible headache (mostly from listening to my poor baby scream, no matter how often I tried to nurse or feed him, etc.) so I was grateful for the last 2 hours to switch with Tim and drive his car, while he drove mine with all the kiddos.
The kids were entertained for awhile listening to the theme music from "Unbreakable." Timmy calls it the "bouncy song" because they were all bouncing in their seats to the beat, and I told Timmy that it used to be one of his favorite songs to be bounced to when Daddy was deployed. Then I realized that it was exactly 6 years ago today that Tim left us... even just telling Timmy about how we used to dance to the song, I got all choked up and had to start again. Therese asked why Timmy missed Daddy so much "when Daddy was in Iraq." Timmy said, "Because I liked him!" I don't know if he really has any memory of Tim being gone, but he does remember things from within weeks of Daddy's return... so I suppose it is possible. Anyway, we are grateful that this March 16th, we are all together as a family - and doing what it takes, even this crazy road trip, to keep it that way!
March 17th: Left Cincinnati just after 9am, after a relatively comfortable night, but Ryan was still really restless for much of it. The kids were excited to make it into KY within a short time, and were on the lookout for "bluegrass," which they did see here and there. They were also pleasantly surprised to see how red the dirt became once we neared Bowling Green, and for about 2 hours all I heard (besides Ryan crying) was "Red dirt! Red dirt! RED DIRT!!!" LOL We discussed different types of grass, the iron content of the dirt (the kids call it i-ron), the reasons why the weather down here is warmer than up north, how KY and TN are so much more hilly than most of OH, etc. Ryan did pretty well the first couple of hours, and we only had to stop every 90-120 min or so the whole day... think we made 4 stops... again, only getting out of the cars once to use bathrooms. (Thankfully we have a cooler in the car, so we haven't had to buy any fast food or anything at all.) Right before hitting the TN border, Tim and I switched again - the kids told me Ryan didn't cry the whole time Daddy was driving. What the heck. He did do better today, but cried for the last several hours I was driving him. Maybe it's because he sees me and the babas. ;)
Got lucky with some rocks that were knocked loose by a pick-up truck in front of me that dropped its load... sparks were flying and rocks were shooting up everywhere... still, they cracked and dented the windshield. I am just grateful that there was no real accident, and that nothing actually went flying right through the windshield. That was pretty much the only real adventure of the day... the 45 min it took us to go 1 1/2 miles at one point was frustrating, but again, it could have been worse. Only 9 hours in the car today, too, so that was also better than yesterday.
It's sort of weird driving this route again... it's been over three years since I last drove it, but still, this is my 8th time driving these highways... I know the route from NY to TX like the back of my hand. When it's this familiar, both big and little landmarks mean a great deal... let you know you're getting there, despite all the crying and whining and chaos.... the National Corvette Museum... Louisville... the Red River... Nashville... Natchez Trace State Park... and even the classic southern, "backwoods" town names that make us crack up everytime we drive through. :) (I think Bucksnort TN takes the cake on that one! :) )
The most exciting thing for the kids today, though, was seeing bright red buds on the trees, and purple and yellow flowers growing along the side of the road! Once we hit the Nashville area, you could really see that spring was starting to make its presence known. No snow, greener grass, and flowers here and there. It's actually such a climate shock for me that I had the A/C on for awhile because it got into the high 50's! If that's not a "You know you're from the North Country when....." I don't know what is. :) (But if the car windows didn't make such a loud noise while opened, yes, I would have opened them instead. :P )
Hoping for a good night's sleep tonight, and a continued safe journey tomorrow.
The kids were entertained for awhile listening to the theme music from "Unbreakable." Timmy calls it the "bouncy song" because they were all bouncing in their seats to the beat, and I told Timmy that it used to be one of his favorite songs to be bounced to when Daddy was deployed. Then I realized that it was exactly 6 years ago today that Tim left us... even just telling Timmy about how we used to dance to the song, I got all choked up and had to start again. Therese asked why Timmy missed Daddy so much "when Daddy was in Iraq." Timmy said, "Because I liked him!" I don't know if he really has any memory of Tim being gone, but he does remember things from within weeks of Daddy's return... so I suppose it is possible. Anyway, we are grateful that this March 16th, we are all together as a family - and doing what it takes, even this crazy road trip, to keep it that way!
March 17th: Left Cincinnati just after 9am, after a relatively comfortable night, but Ryan was still really restless for much of it. The kids were excited to make it into KY within a short time, and were on the lookout for "bluegrass," which they did see here and there. They were also pleasantly surprised to see how red the dirt became once we neared Bowling Green, and for about 2 hours all I heard (besides Ryan crying) was "Red dirt! Red dirt! RED DIRT!!!" LOL We discussed different types of grass, the iron content of the dirt (the kids call it i-ron), the reasons why the weather down here is warmer than up north, how KY and TN are so much more hilly than most of OH, etc. Ryan did pretty well the first couple of hours, and we only had to stop every 90-120 min or so the whole day... think we made 4 stops... again, only getting out of the cars once to use bathrooms. (Thankfully we have a cooler in the car, so we haven't had to buy any fast food or anything at all.) Right before hitting the TN border, Tim and I switched again - the kids told me Ryan didn't cry the whole time Daddy was driving. What the heck. He did do better today, but cried for the last several hours I was driving him. Maybe it's because he sees me and the babas. ;)
Got lucky with some rocks that were knocked loose by a pick-up truck in front of me that dropped its load... sparks were flying and rocks were shooting up everywhere... still, they cracked and dented the windshield. I am just grateful that there was no real accident, and that nothing actually went flying right through the windshield. That was pretty much the only real adventure of the day... the 45 min it took us to go 1 1/2 miles at one point was frustrating, but again, it could have been worse. Only 9 hours in the car today, too, so that was also better than yesterday.
It's sort of weird driving this route again... it's been over three years since I last drove it, but still, this is my 8th time driving these highways... I know the route from NY to TX like the back of my hand. When it's this familiar, both big and little landmarks mean a great deal... let you know you're getting there, despite all the crying and whining and chaos.... the National Corvette Museum... Louisville... the Red River... Nashville... Natchez Trace State Park... and even the classic southern, "backwoods" town names that make us crack up everytime we drive through. :) (I think Bucksnort TN takes the cake on that one! :) )
The most exciting thing for the kids today, though, was seeing bright red buds on the trees, and purple and yellow flowers growing along the side of the road! Once we hit the Nashville area, you could really see that spring was starting to make its presence known. No snow, greener grass, and flowers here and there. It's actually such a climate shock for me that I had the A/C on for awhile because it got into the high 50's! If that's not a "You know you're from the North Country when....." I don't know what is. :) (But if the car windows didn't make such a loud noise while opened, yes, I would have opened them instead. :P )
Hoping for a good night's sleep tonight, and a continued safe journey tomorrow.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
One Elephant, Deux Elephants
This has become one of the kids' favorite songs... complete with the French. Considering our proximity to Quebec (and my own French-Canadian background) it's rather appropriate. :) The lyrics to this particular version can be hard to find, so... just thought I'd share. :)
One elephant went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day
He had such enormous fun
That he called for another elephant to come.
Deux éléphants allaient jouer
Sur une toile d'araignée
Ils s'amusaient tellement bien
Qu'ils appelaient à un autre, viens!
Three elephants went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day
They had such enormous fun
That they called for another elephant to come.
Quatre éléphants allaient jouer
Sur une toile d'araignée
Ils s'amusaient tellement bien
Qu'ils appelaient à un autre, viens!
All the elephants were out at play
Upon a spider's web one day
They had such enormous fun
But, there were no more elephants left to come!
One elephant went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day
He had such enormous fun
That he called for another elephant to come.
Deux éléphants allaient jouer
Sur une toile d'araignée
Ils s'amusaient tellement bien
Qu'ils appelaient à un autre, viens!
Three elephants went out to play
Upon a spider's web one day
They had such enormous fun
That they called for another elephant to come.
Quatre éléphants allaient jouer
Sur une toile d'araignée
Ils s'amusaient tellement bien
Qu'ils appelaient à un autre, viens!
All the elephants were out at play
Upon a spider's web one day
They had such enormous fun
But, there were no more elephants left to come!
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