The ground is level at the foot of the cross....recovering addict rescued by the saving grace of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Anna's new blankie

Anna with Marinas bra

Friday, September 16, 2005

Nick's B-Day

Happy birthday Nick

Monday, September 05, 2005

Weeeeee!

Anna going down the slide at Leach Lake Park

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Gone Fishing

Bean and Phillip at the lake

A Pirate says Argh!

Anna at the lake

Saturday, September 03, 2005

First Day of School for the Kids

Today was the first day of school for the kids!! It was both an exciting day and a little bit of a sad one as well. We left at 7:19 AM, only 4 minutes later than we had planned! Mary did a great job getting the kids running and even making sure that they had a good breakfast to start the day right (except for Nicholas who insisted on having cereal, of which he only ate half).

We dropped off Marina first at the Tomah Middle School. I’d post pictures but Marina wasn’t too crazy about the idea of us following after her with a camera. I walked her to locker, after we searched in vain for her classroom. The halls were so crowded with kids that it took awhile to get through the crowds. Eventually we found a teacher to help us and he showed us Marina’s locker. I asked Marina if she was all right now and she looked up at me with that real nervous look that she every so often shows. I smiled, told her that she would be just fine and whispered that I loved her and left.

Next we took Phillip and Nicholas to LaGrange Elementary School. As we were walking into the school we passed a mom leaving with tears in her eyes. Mary and I looked at each other knowingly, it wasn’t long ago when we were taking Marina to kindergarten and now she’s in sixth grade already. We dropped Phillip off in the gym where he joined his class with Mrs. Wolf. Afterwards we took Nicholas to Mrs. Mee’s kindergarten class where we received an extra set of hugs from Nick. On the way out, we checked on Phillip one more time. He was lining up with his class and we got the chance to say goodbye to him on his way to his class. I left feeling a little sad that my kids were growing so quickly.

When I got to work today I found out that the unit I supported, the 132nd FSB, was deploying personnel to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief. I think my weekend just went away, but I’m reminding myself that it’s for a really good cause. We were going to go to Park Rapids with Mary’s dad, but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen anymore. We’ll find out more later.

Greetings from Fort McCoy

Hello from Fort McCoy. Actually we’ve been here for over 2 weeks already and have finally just now had a chance to sit down and post a regular update instead of just pictures from our camera phone. So here’s the short version of what’s going on.

We’re number four on the housing waiting list. They number 1 person won’t get a house until November so at best we won’t get a on-post house until the beginning of next year. That’s very very disappointing. We are current living in the guest lodge. They have 2 and 3 bedroom trailers for their guest lodging and I can honestly say that this is the best temporary accommodations that we have ever lived in. We can stay here until the middle of October so that takes a lot of the house hunting stress off of us since we can now do it at our leisure. Nevertheless we all miss our household goods and would like a little more space to live in as well.

The people in the area are extremely friendly. All the people at Fort McCoy and in the town of Tomah have been very helpful. We even had good service in the Wal-Mart!!! Phillip noticed that right away. The boys are both enrolled in the same elementary school and Marina is enrolled in the middle school. Here the middle school is a lot like high school. Mariana has her own locker and a class schedule like a high school student where she goes to different classes that have different teachers.

I’ve also finally started my new job. The unit is very different from my last one. The stress level is a lot lower and most people there seem to be in a transitional stage in their careers. I wonder what transition I’m going through?