Sunday, April 27, 2008
Promised Pictures
Here are a couple of the pictures we've taken. With the first one keep in mind that it is at 1:45AM. The other picture was taken today.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Paddywhack
Steve had to go check in Friday morning and while he was there he found a huge pile of candy for the soldiers. He picked up a package of tic-tacs. I can't remember the last time I had a tic-tac. Anyway- Ellie asked what they were and Steve started singing, "tic-tac paddy-whack give your dog a bone..." Ellie really likes those candies, so now when she wants one, she asks, "Daddy, can I have a paddy-whack?" Still makes me laugh when I think about it.
It's been really crazy for us. We've moved 4 times in the last week. We can't get a reservation for longer than 3 nights here on post. And with each reservation it's a different room- in the same building. We have to be out of the room by 11, then can't move back in until 3pm. Of course that 4-hour break is right in the middle of nap time. We are getting more proficient at what we bring in the room, but it's still a huge pain, especially if Steve is at work when we're moving out. We have a microwave and tiny fridge in the room and there is a kitchen at the end of the hall here. We've used the kitchen once to bake a Papa Murphy's pizza. Luckily there's free laundry down at the end of the hall as well. We eat out at least once a day and are already getting tired of it. Yuck. I think Steve is making up for lost time as it comes to take-out pizza.
We took the girls to the circus on Saturday. We got free tickets from the Army and drove the hour to Salina where the Shriners sponsored the circus. We stayed just the first half (attention span of two little girls prohibited staying longer... Ellie would have made it). Ellie loved the tigers and horses that we did see. It was a very well-done show, though.
Other than that we're just trying to survive. I have to say I'm not good at this. Arranging bedtimes for three girls in one room has been a nightmare. It's usually at least 9pm before we get all three to sleep. Katie has to go to bed first, otherwise she climbs into Sarah's bed and wakes her up. But then of course Katie wakes up first and then climbs into Sarah's bed and gets her up much earlier than she is ready. She actually did that during Sarah's nap this morning while I was in the shower. Sarah also got her third tooth Sunday.
But in the end it is wonderful to have Steve home. He started back to work yesterday, which is usually just 2-3 hours a day of classes. Then he gets to hang with us, which we are really enjoying. The girls have warmed up to him very well. Sarah isn't completely convinced, but she's getting there. It's just really nice to have him here.
We have been taking pictures, but I can't seem to find the time to do anything with them. Eventually I promise to get some posted.
It's been really crazy for us. We've moved 4 times in the last week. We can't get a reservation for longer than 3 nights here on post. And with each reservation it's a different room- in the same building. We have to be out of the room by 11, then can't move back in until 3pm. Of course that 4-hour break is right in the middle of nap time. We are getting more proficient at what we bring in the room, but it's still a huge pain, especially if Steve is at work when we're moving out. We have a microwave and tiny fridge in the room and there is a kitchen at the end of the hall here. We've used the kitchen once to bake a Papa Murphy's pizza. Luckily there's free laundry down at the end of the hall as well. We eat out at least once a day and are already getting tired of it. Yuck. I think Steve is making up for lost time as it comes to take-out pizza.
We took the girls to the circus on Saturday. We got free tickets from the Army and drove the hour to Salina where the Shriners sponsored the circus. We stayed just the first half (attention span of two little girls prohibited staying longer... Ellie would have made it). Ellie loved the tigers and horses that we did see. It was a very well-done show, though.
Other than that we're just trying to survive. I have to say I'm not good at this. Arranging bedtimes for three girls in one room has been a nightmare. It's usually at least 9pm before we get all three to sleep. Katie has to go to bed first, otherwise she climbs into Sarah's bed and wakes her up. But then of course Katie wakes up first and then climbs into Sarah's bed and gets her up much earlier than she is ready. She actually did that during Sarah's nap this morning while I was in the shower. Sarah also got her third tooth Sunday.
But in the end it is wonderful to have Steve home. He started back to work yesterday, which is usually just 2-3 hours a day of classes. Then he gets to hang with us, which we are really enjoying. The girls have warmed up to him very well. Sarah isn't completely convinced, but she's getting there. It's just really nice to have him here.
We have been taking pictures, but I can't seem to find the time to do anything with them. Eventually I promise to get some posted.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
HE'S HOME!!!!!
Steve is home safe and sound (arrived at 1:30 this morning) and we just love having him here. It's almost surreal that he's actually home and we will somehow find a way to survive life in this hotel room for the next month! I'll write more when I get pictures off the camera.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Final Word
We've been informed that our welcoming ceremony is schedule for 4:15 AM Tuesday morning. Certainly not ideal, but Steve's coming home, so I'll take what I can get!!! Next time I write Steve will be home :-D
Also, we had the pleasure of having Bishop Burton at our Stake Conference today, which was a real treat. He spoke about prophets and it was really quite enjoyable. Dick commented on how soothing his voice was (as it put him to sleep!). Sybil was sweet and watched the girls while I enjoyed an hour of conference (which was right during afternoon naps).
Also, we had the pleasure of having Bishop Burton at our Stake Conference today, which was a real treat. He spoke about prophets and it was really quite enjoyable. Dick commented on how soothing his voice was (as it put him to sleep!). Sybil was sweet and watched the girls while I enjoyed an hour of conference (which was right during afternoon naps).
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Where Are They Now?
First of all- Congrats to Brad and Brandalee on their marriage today! I am so excited to have a new sister-in-law and can't wait to get to know her! I heard their day has been perfect and I really wish I was there to join in the celebration.
But instead, here we are, still sitting in Illinois waiting for Steve. The good news is that he is in Kuwait and we expect him home sometime between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. We are obviously more than ready to have him home!!! Some other good news is that we were finally able to get a reservation for temporary housing on post, so we will only be in that one-room hotel room the first night. Hooray! Then it is fairly likely that we will get a house on post by mid-May. Again- very good news. Now I am feeling the stress of getting packed and ready to go. I'm trying to get as much done tonight so I don't have to be worrying about it on Sunday. Dick and Sybil have been wonderful and have really helped out by watching the girls while I ran errands and packed the van. While I have anticipated this for over a year, it is still hard to believe that Steve is actually coming home to stay. And hard to believe I'm going to make that 10-hour trip to Kansas on Monday by myself again! Just two more sleeps... :)
But instead, here we are, still sitting in Illinois waiting for Steve. The good news is that he is in Kuwait and we expect him home sometime between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. We are obviously more than ready to have him home!!! Some other good news is that we were finally able to get a reservation for temporary housing on post, so we will only be in that one-room hotel room the first night. Hooray! Then it is fairly likely that we will get a house on post by mid-May. Again- very good news. Now I am feeling the stress of getting packed and ready to go. I'm trying to get as much done tonight so I don't have to be worrying about it on Sunday. Dick and Sybil have been wonderful and have really helped out by watching the girls while I ran errands and packed the van. While I have anticipated this for over a year, it is still hard to believe that Steve is actually coming home to stay. And hard to believe I'm going to make that 10-hour trip to Kansas on Monday by myself again! Just two more sleeps... :)
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Frustration
The Army can sure be annoying sometimes. Steve is finally at Biap (Baghdad International Airport) but now it'll be a couple days before he leaves for Kuwait and who knows when he'll be flying home. I probably could have made it for my brother's wedding this weekend after all. I am beyond frustrated!
On a lighter note, the picture site is up and running again so I loaded pictures from the last two months on there. They work best if you use the slideshow function on the side, FYI. Click here for the "Newest Pictures"
On a lighter note, the picture site is up and running again so I loaded pictures from the last two months on there. They work best if you use the slideshow function on the side, FYI. Click here for the "Newest Pictures"
Sunday, April 6, 2008
and then there were just two....days that is!
(taken from Steve's blog...)
Well, it is hard to believe, but the time is here that I finally go home! And with the job at West Point pending, hopefully, this will be my last deployment at least for another six years. That sure will be a blessing for our family.
We finished up all of the swap out activities, we call them RIP activities (relief in place), on the 1st, so since then we haven't done a whole lot of anything but wait. We preplanned in a little extra cushion into our plan in case things didn't work out, but it turns out that everything worked out just fine with very few setbacks, so that is good. We handed over all of our equipment and our buildings and we are pretty much homeless living out of our tents. I've found a little corner of our old office to put my laptop to continue to check email and chat with Tiff in the evenings.
Things are all set and I'm super excited to go home. We did learn of one snag in the plan this week though pertaining to housing. This has been an ongoing challenge for quite a few months now. We thought we had it solved by using temporary housing on post, but it looks like that turned into a pretty solid dead end this week. On Post housing will not be available until some time in May, probably mid-may at the earliest, so our plan was to stay in temporary housing at Fort Riley until that time. Well, Tiff called up temporary housing this past week 7 days out from when she is planning to head out there (on the 10th) and they told her that we wouldn't be able to stay in there as priority goes to incoming Soldiers and families that are moving from other locations, not to redeploying Soldiers. And even if we could get in there, we would only be able to stay for a maximum of 3 days at a time. The frustrating point is that we have called them quite a few times prior and this is the first time they have mentioned anything about this limitation. Secondly, even if we could get a reservation they are completely sold out for at least a week after Tiff is scheduled to be back at Fort Riley and I come home. So we've spent the last few days looking at other options such as finding a place that is willing to do rent month by month or find a hotel that has suites and a long term rate.
It is amazing how many obstacles we've hit with this situation. This definitely brings new meaning to the scripture "there was no room at the Inn". There is only one place that has suites in the area that has a close off second area, but they wouldn't budge on their $135/night even if we were to stay the whole month there, so that would end up costing a prohibitive $4000+/month to stay there. After talking to a bunch of owners and Realtors, I've yet to find anyone that is willing to do month by month rent too. The shortest they will negotiate for is 6mo. My Battalion Commander even tried to call in a favor to the Post Commander to get us into temporary housing, but to no avail. He tried to call in some favors to housing to see if we could get a house earlier, but there really is just nothing available right now. The ward back in Junction City has been trying to help us find something to rent, but again, nothing has come up that we can do month by month. So it looks like we'll be in a one room hotel for a month (because the girls are too young to have their own room) until we can either get a house on post or head off on leave in May. It is looking like we'll be on leave before we actually are offered something. We'll continue to pray for it to work out one way or another.
One potential silver-lining is that the one hotel we found that actually has a room available for the whole month also turns out to have the best room rates we could find. Also, we found out after some inquiring with a clerk yesterday, that they have a few rooms that have a connecting door, so we might be able to work a deal with the manager next week for two connecting rooms and make an ad-hoc suite so we can get the girls into their own room at least part of the time which would be a nice blessing for naps, sanity, and sleeping arrangements.
Well, just a couple more days and my days of Iraqi living will be over (hopefully indefinitely!). I sure do appreciate all of the support and prayers that have been said on my behalf and the behalf of our family, I have definitely felt them and been the recipient of many blessings while I've been here and our family has been well taken care of. My thanks and gratitude to everyone.
Well, it is hard to believe, but the time is here that I finally go home! And with the job at West Point pending, hopefully, this will be my last deployment at least for another six years. That sure will be a blessing for our family.
We finished up all of the swap out activities, we call them RIP activities (relief in place), on the 1st, so since then we haven't done a whole lot of anything but wait. We preplanned in a little extra cushion into our plan in case things didn't work out, but it turns out that everything worked out just fine with very few setbacks, so that is good. We handed over all of our equipment and our buildings and we are pretty much homeless living out of our tents. I've found a little corner of our old office to put my laptop to continue to check email and chat with Tiff in the evenings.
Things are all set and I'm super excited to go home. We did learn of one snag in the plan this week though pertaining to housing. This has been an ongoing challenge for quite a few months now. We thought we had it solved by using temporary housing on post, but it looks like that turned into a pretty solid dead end this week. On Post housing will not be available until some time in May, probably mid-may at the earliest, so our plan was to stay in temporary housing at Fort Riley until that time. Well, Tiff called up temporary housing this past week 7 days out from when she is planning to head out there (on the 10th) and they told her that we wouldn't be able to stay in there as priority goes to incoming Soldiers and families that are moving from other locations, not to redeploying Soldiers. And even if we could get in there, we would only be able to stay for a maximum of 3 days at a time. The frustrating point is that we have called them quite a few times prior and this is the first time they have mentioned anything about this limitation. Secondly, even if we could get a reservation they are completely sold out for at least a week after Tiff is scheduled to be back at Fort Riley and I come home. So we've spent the last few days looking at other options such as finding a place that is willing to do rent month by month or find a hotel that has suites and a long term rate.
It is amazing how many obstacles we've hit with this situation. This definitely brings new meaning to the scripture "there was no room at the Inn". There is only one place that has suites in the area that has a close off second area, but they wouldn't budge on their $135/night even if we were to stay the whole month there, so that would end up costing a prohibitive $4000+/month to stay there. After talking to a bunch of owners and Realtors, I've yet to find anyone that is willing to do month by month rent too. The shortest they will negotiate for is 6mo. My Battalion Commander even tried to call in a favor to the Post Commander to get us into temporary housing, but to no avail. He tried to call in some favors to housing to see if we could get a house earlier, but there really is just nothing available right now. The ward back in Junction City has been trying to help us find something to rent, but again, nothing has come up that we can do month by month. So it looks like we'll be in a one room hotel for a month (because the girls are too young to have their own room) until we can either get a house on post or head off on leave in May. It is looking like we'll be on leave before we actually are offered something. We'll continue to pray for it to work out one way or another.
One potential silver-lining is that the one hotel we found that actually has a room available for the whole month also turns out to have the best room rates we could find. Also, we found out after some inquiring with a clerk yesterday, that they have a few rooms that have a connecting door, so we might be able to work a deal with the manager next week for two connecting rooms and make an ad-hoc suite so we can get the girls into their own room at least part of the time which would be a nice blessing for naps, sanity, and sleeping arrangements.
Well, just a couple more days and my days of Iraqi living will be over (hopefully indefinitely!). I sure do appreciate all of the support and prayers that have been said on my behalf and the behalf of our family, I have definitely felt them and been the recipient of many blessings while I've been here and our family has been well taken care of. My thanks and gratitude to everyone.
Home Stretch
So, like Steve said- we're getting really close to his homecoming. We are obviously very excited, yet a little nervous about the living arrangements. I have decided to take only what we will need in that little hotel room and we'll pick up the rest when we come through here in May.It's been really busy around here. I finished up my last big sewing project and am pleased yet again with how it turned out. I'm ready to take a break from the sewing machine for awhile!
Sarah is a full-blown walker. She rarely crawls anymore. She has a kind of diagonal shuffle which is just really funny to watch. I will catch her on video soon to show just how darling she is.
Katie loves to sing and I got her on video singing her latest. She makes me laugh. She has most definitely hit those terrible 2's though. Ellie somehow put those off until age 3. But we're getting full-blown 2-year old around here lately. Mom's comment was that Katie stopped screaming right before Steve left (colic) and started screaming again right before he came home. And yet she's also the sweetest little girl and we just love her regardless of the craziness.
Ellie has a special going away party with her sunbeam class tomorrow, which she is super excited about. I think it's really sweet of her teacher to invite a bunch of 3-year olds into her home for pizza and a movie. I'm curious to see what movie Ellie decides to take tomorrow. Our favorite lately has been "Enchanted", which we watch just about every other day together.
So in the meantime I'm trying to pretend I'm packing and getting ready to go. Definitely a bittersweet move for us. We are going to miss Mom and Dad and the Smiths terribly.
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